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I called surface decompression tables a scam for 6 years until a job in Galveston changed my mind
For years I kept my dives shallow and short and told younger guys the tables were just company paperwork. Then a job in Galveston on a pipeline repair put me at 115 feet for 38 minutes, and the tender walked me through a surface interval in the chamber instead of hanging at 30 feet. I came out feeling better than I did after a 20 minute hang at 10 feet, and my joints weren't screaming the next morning. I ran the math on my log and the total bottom time still added up, the time just moved to the deck. Two guys on that crew had been doing it for a decade with no hits, and that counted for more than anything in a manual. I still won't push the limits on a table I don't trust, but I was flat wrong about the concept. Any of you running surface decompression on a regular basis, what's your cutoff depth where you switch back to in water?
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elliot_grant387d ago
Galveston in August is a whole different animal than the Gulf in January, and that surface interval on deck works fine until the water gets cold or the seas pick up and you can't hold a stop at 30 feet to save your life. I've seen guys get bent hard on surface tables when the chamber ride got delayed by 20 minutes, and there's no fixing that once it's rolling. Give me the hang any day, at least you're already where you need to be if something goes sideways. The tables aren't wrong, but they lean on everything going right, and out there that's a big ask.
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